Speculative Evolution Wiki:List of Projects/Project Overviews
Want to have your interest piqued? Just want to browse through some projects? Well here's the page for you! Please skim through all of these before you choose one to read, because if you read them by order the ones at the bottom will always get less views. This page lists and puts links to all the projects we have here on the wikia, along with the logo and an intro. So people who just want to browse through some projects and see what they're about can look at this. Feel free to: *Alter any information that is got wrong or want to add to *Add new projects *Change the format if it seems appropriate Future of The World Evolutionary Continuum Community Project What is the fate of life after present day? What forms will meet extinction or evolution? Such is one of the most discussed subjects of speculative evolution, and evolution in general; there are many documentaries showing future evolution, such as The Future is Wild and After Man: A Zoology of the Future. This page is a prediction of what will happen to the fauna of the world, from various million years from the future. The Future of the world is a community project, but unapproved animals go in the candidates section. This project might not be believable in your eyes, this is because of the great differences from The Future is Wild. Please don't alter the project too much, like deleting a huge number of creatures. New Pleistocene Evolutionary Continuum Dormant Project (Whanggoldpaw) It's the dawn of a new Ice Age. Ice sheets extend as far south as Paris in the northern hemisphere and as far north as Buenos Aires in the southern hemisphere. North America's western great plains have become desert. A majority of South America is Grassland, only the Amazon River houses the rainforest of South America. Europe has become increasingly colder, while Asia has become dryer and more mountainous. Russia, Australia and Antarctica have relatively stayed the same, though the fauna changed drastically in Australia and New Zealand, as invasive and introduced species start to change the ecosystem drastically. Eocene Split Alternative Evolution Dormant Project (Myotragus) The Grande Coupure, at the end of the Eocene epoch, was one of the most drastic faunal turnovers of the Cenozoic era. During and (much more so) after this time the world started to drastically cool as tropical forests gave way to grasslands and the once diverse Paleogene megafauna started to decline. Many well-known beasts from brontotheres to creodonts started to decline. This was a new age. The age of the pecorans and carnivorans; and the and the age of grass, and ice, feeding on the loss of the great Eocene forests, and with them all of their flora and fauna. Then the world started to become an icehouse. The ice caps started to develop. The ice age began. An unimportant primate from the African savannah became a skilled hunter and conquered the world. And it was driven by the savannahs where it evolved, a result of the sudden domination of the grasslands in the Miocene. But this timeline is different. Grass never fully diversified, inhibiting the development of the ruminants, with the Pecora, one of the most successful recent groups of mammals, on the brink of extinction. The split happened in the Priabonian, 35 million years ago, meaning that more of the unfamiliar Eocene fauna was kept, and the Neogene fauna was almost nonexistent. The world stayed in greenhouse climate for the rest of the Cenozoic. And thus, an entire new Earth was created. Silent Skies ' ' Astrobiology/Alternative Evolution Dormant Project (Myogratus) "There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls." - George Carlin In the long history of the world, never before was there such a spectacular leap of faith taken about by nature. Four and a half billion years ago, a planet the size of Mars, now dubbed Theia, slammed into the proto-Earth. The molten rock spun off into space, where it would be pulled together, forming the Earth's only satellite, the Moon. This event, the giant impact and the result it had on the history of Earth since then, has changed life as we know it; seasons, stability and perhaps it had been the instigator of life for our world. However, this project will look at a completely different world, or should I say, worlds, for in this universe, Theia (the Mars-sized planetoid that struck Earth, leading to the Moons formation) does not strike the young Earth, and, like fate, gets trapped within the boundary of the habitable zone. In the long history of the world, never before was there such a spectacular leap of faith taken about by nature. Four and a half billion years ago, a planet the size of Mars, now dubbed Theia, slammed into the proto-Earth. The molten rock spun off into space, where it would form the Moon known today. This event, the giant impact and the result it had on the history of Earth since then, has changed life as we know it; seasons, stability and perhaps the instigator of life on our home world. Thalassa: The Diamond in the Roughness of Space Astrobiology Dormant Project (JaggerButtermilk) Thalassa is a moon that orbits Theia, a water cloud jovian, its atmosphere consists mainly of hydrogen, and other hydrogen-rich compounds such as methane. Theia orbits a yellow dwarf called Polyphemus. Discovered by an expedition at the mid-twenty first century, it was one of the most amazing things that had happened to the human race for decades. To the cultures of Earth, Thalassa is mysterious, primal and terrifying. Despite this, a glimpse of the planet from space will show the planet is brimming with life due to the abundance of flora and clear atmosphere. Depending on the position of Thalassa, three or four moons could be visible from its surface. Together with the bioluminescent plants and the number of moons visible, the night is a spectacle, and truly dark nights are uncommon. Animula Astrobiology Dormant Project (Harekiller) Home to the top jawed bottom eyed exoanimals. Animula, Latin for a piece of soul or life, is another sanctuary for life; a planet quite similar to earth, but due to evolution's randomness in establishing traits, is home to creatures awe-inspiringly different superficially, behaviourally and fundamentally to life on earth, down to their very cells. When humans, in in midst of a new foray into space by means of wormhole genesis, discovered this amazing life-filled planet, scientists had at last found conclusive evidence that life did indeed exist out of earth, and not just tiny extremeophilic life; life that was multicellular, sophisticated, intelligent, and all the more astonishing (and massive because of Animula's lower gravity). What if the Asteroid Missed? Alternative Evolution Solo Project (KaptainWombat) What if the Asteroid Missed? This is one of the biggest questions that paleontology has asked. Would dinosaurs continue to dominate megafaunal niches? Or would they eventually surrender their spot to the other great animals, the mammals or the crocodilians? Terra Chordata Astrobiology/Evolutionary Continuum Dormant Project (Marcello27) This is a terraformed planet with a difference. Instead of a high invertebrate diversity and a low chordate diversity, it is the other way around. There were six chordates and only one invertebrate introduced. The lifeforms introduced are listed below: *Diatoms *Cyanobacteria *Green algae *Various microbial algae *''Echiniscoides sigismundi (tardigrade) *''Branchiostoma lanceolatum (lancelet) *''Branchiostoma floridae (lancelet) *''Epigonichthys hectori ''(lancelet) *''Epigonicthys australis ''(lancelet) *''Clavelina moluccensis (tunicate) *''Oikopleura dioica'' (tunicate) Triassic Divergence Alternative Evolution Dormant Project (Streszhoun) After the Permian-Triassic extinction, the most important extinction to the dominance of the dinosaurs was the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. While there are many competing theories as to the cause of this extinction, its impact was undeniable. The pseudosuchians and phytosaurs (which were arguably the dominant tetrapods at the end of the Triassic) went extinct or into severe decline except for the Crocodiliformes; Conodontophora, non-ammonitid ammonoids, and dicynodonts went extinct entirely; and numerous other groups were decimated. This great turnover in terrestrial fauna allowed the dinosaurs (in direct competition in many cases with their distant crocodile-line relatives) to come to prominence, and most of the groups defining the "Mesozoic Marine Revolution" evolved after this event. What would have happened if the Triassic fauna had lived to see the Cretaceous-Paleogene Mass Extinction? What if these great groups had not gone extinct? Dinosaurs of the Ice Age Alternative Evolution Dormant Project (Cryptile33) Between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, about 145 MYA, was a time during the age of dinosaurs when the world actually started to cool down due to a minor glaciation. However, what if there wasn't any volcanic activity after the glaciation? How much more severe would the world get? What groups would go extinct if this happened? What groups would evolve? Would the non-avian dinosaurs survive the K-T mass extinction in this alternate timeline? Frozen in Time Alternative Evolution Semi-Dormant Project (Marcello27) Imagine a world where life has been pushed to its limits. Where the life is nothing like anything you've ever seen, yet looks vaguely familiar. Where ice rules the world, and not an inch of liquid waters covers the ocean. Imagine a world frozen in time. What was the driving force of evolution during the Phanerozoic eon? None else than the recovery from the snowball earths of the Cryogenian. But this recovery was lucky, and if the large amounts of volcanism signaling the end of the Cryogenian and the dawn of the Ediacaran didn't happen in time, the world would be stuck with an ocean surface as hard as rock. All animal life could perish, and the Precambrian would never end. What if this was the case? I will lead you through a though experiment which shows what may have happened if the Cryogenian glaciations lasted until the Triassic of our timeline. In this world, volcanism and CO2 are at zero and 50 ppm respectively. This is because the buildup and breakup of the supercontinent of Rodinia have stopped plate tectonics almost completely. The split happened not at the end of the Cryogenian, but at the end of the Hadean eon, after the formation of the Earth. The Late Heavy Bombardment lasted less than 1 million years because of a random change in Jupiter's orbit which stopped it from staying in sync with Saturn. The Earth cooled much more quickly, and this had an effect on plate tectonics. Starting about the same as the plate tectonics in our timeline, the process slowed down because of the quicker cooling of the Earth, and by the breakup of Rodinia, this had accumulated enough to stop volcanism. The CO2 dropped quickly, and the Cryogenian glaciations became yet more severe, and without break.